I have a 2011 JSW TDI 6-spd manual, and had been driving on the Kerma TDI tune. That tune did not pass MA state inspection, so then I put the stock VW tune back in. The stock tune is the VW emissions recall tune that I had installed back in CA back in August 2017. I took the car back to the shop (Marlborough Nissan, good people) and again, it didn't pass. The reasons were that the EGR was "not ready," as well as another emissions-related sensor (inspection papers not with me atm). I would like to know if anybody else in MA has come across this; I understand this is a slim group of people. Thanks.

Fuel Economy: Who cares? It's a DIESEL! Great fuel economy comes as a bonus!

IIRC you are allowed to have one or two readiness monitors in a "not ready" state and still pass the test. That's how my 05 PD JWagen passed for years in NH which requires passing an OBD-II scan and readiness. Same in MA, IIRC. The EGR readiness monitor always showed not ready because of mods and tuning but all other readiness monitors worked and showed ready status.

There may have been other readiness monitors (more than 2) that were not ready yet. The car needs to be driven enough to get all readiness monitors to set "ready" status. The readiness monitors are designed to prevent people from simply clearing all codes and immediately go for their inspection and pray they get through the inspection before any codes come back.

Would driving around until the readiness monitors become "ready" take longer than a typical OBDII driving cycle? I have 60 days, and the folks at the shop said they've seen (although uncommon) a car take almost two months to get all the readiness monitors back in check. Therefore they told me to drive around for a month; sometimes it just takes that long.

Unfortunately, I am not familiar with having a few monitors not be ready and still pass inspection. If that is indeed a true statement, then I could go back and ask the shop to change the vehicle status. At time same time I'd be contacting VW and asking if they recalled my software correctly.

You should have no issues passing with the Kerma tune, as nothing is deleted. I passed state inspection without any issues with my Kerma tunes JSW. Reach out to them and let them know the issue you're having

Fuel Economy: Built a 2002 TDI Jetta that got 120 mpg of diesel using a CNG blend.

In MA you can have one monitor not ready that is to pass for a sticker if you have the OEM tune in it I would use the VAG com and do a drive DPF regen. This will get it close and with luck ready for the sticker.
Bob Mann

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Bob Mannwww.DRVOLKS.combobtec@comcast.net
VW and Audi Master Technician and TDI Specialist. Bob has over 35 years of experience in the field, and is listed on TDIclub.com as a trusted TDI Mechanic.
Bob is also known for his CNG conversions and is a consultant for Patrick Racing.

The readiness monitors are all read out over ODB2 which is actually quite helpful. That means you can check the status of the monitors yourself before going in for the inspection.

There are plenty of different ways to get the data. I use the Torque app (or Torque Pro) running on an android phone with one of the cheap ELM327 bluetooth ODB2 readers. One of the displays the Torque app has is a list of all readiness monitors and their status.

When my wife's gasser Jetta needed to reset the readiness bits because of some work I had to do to it for repairs, I found driving it around was insufficient. So then when I was checking the readiness bits on VCDS, I found the program button on the lower left of that screen. It had a specific set of instructions to run through after the car was warmed up. Took about 15 minutes while sitting in the car running through the program to reset the bits. This was opposed to driving the car for miles and miles without result.

If VCDS has a program for your car (the ALH TDIs are so simple to reset a program isn't needed), it would be worth it.

Shameless plug: I have a micro-CAN VCDS for sale (it is my son's) for reasonable $$; for your year it should work fine.

Cheers,

PH

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You always pay for what you get. Sometimes you get what you pay for.It is called dope because it does make you dumb.Thinking outside the box is difficult for some. They're afraid they'll fall off the edge of the box and be lost to oblivion.

The manual readiness setting feature is not on any of the VAG diesels in VCDS, unfortunately.

If it was, I'd be making use of it quite often. Most all the gas VAG engines have it, and I make use of that almost daily it seems.

Someone from Rosstech could comment on this, but I am pretty sure they only give access to what is already resident in any particular ECU. It isn't like they pick and choose what is available and what isn't. And even on the gas engines, it isn't always the exact same procedure. Some go really quickly, and easily. There are even some that only require one "step" from the operator, and once in that mode, the engine just goes through its checks sequentially.

It does require the engine be warmed up though, especially the catalyst(s), so I always take them for a good test drive prior anyway.

I have been in contact with Kerma, and they have a tune on-hand that will help me pass. Since I have this time between the expiration, the Kerma tech is curious to know why things aren't ready. I could've swore I went through one regen process already. I have probably logged over 600 miles on it now, but I guess I'll just be safe.

I think the reason why my tune wasn't working is because I was one of the first folks to get the updated tune from Kerma. I was reporting acceleration shuddering around 1700rpm and 3rd gear, and Kerma and I iterated a number of times before we were able to solve that; that was back in early December. Perhaps Kerma has since then addressed other things?

1000 miles later, i hooked up my OBD scanner and it was still reading the EGR and oxygen sensor as "inc," which I assume is "not ready." Not sure what the deal is, and not sure if taking it to the dealer might reveal the car was previously tuned. Would the dealer void this?

I have been looking around the net and have noticed that folks over in Europe who have had their TDIs recalled are experiencing a large number of EGR failures, as well as other components. I wonder if we're going to encounter this soon....

If you ctrl-f "2012," it basically points out that cars older than that are allowed two monitors to not be ready. My car didn't fail with the catalytic converter, so this should technically pass. Thoughts?